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An interesting paradox
Topic Started: 18 Sep 2009, 01:21 PM (5,796 Views)
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continue..
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Concolor
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@conradw: First of all, the reason I agreed to say that the source of morality is arational, is because I don't choose this source (then my choice could or could not be rational) but that this is a part of who I am. Just like I prefer blue over brown (arational), I prefer to be good to others rather than to not be good (arational). If we want to investigate HOW it came to be that humans are born with this empathy, I would certainly use a rational approach to find out, and there are certainly plenty of rational reasons to be moral (ethical egoism etc.). But for me I would say that the ultimate source of my morality (which I consider to be my empathy) is arational in nature.

Secondly, if I was to make some sort of choice on which heart to base my morals on (even if I hope to have demonstrated that this is slightly besides the point), I would not be able to escape rationality as far as I see it. For it would be more rational to choose a heart I know exist (for any practical purposes of existance), my own, rather than a heart I only have strong empirical reasons to suspect exist, yours, or one I have no reason to believe exists at all, some God's.

(When I say "heart" I of course mean the part of the mind that feels empathy, the real heart is just a muscle.)
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conradw
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of course, I understood what you meant by heart.

Let me get you to come off the fence: Do you believe I exist?
I'd be surprised that this conversation lasted so long if you didn't: note, I didn't ask if you know I exist, only whether you believe I do.

So until proven wrong (which you may be, I'll grant: I may be a figment of your imagination), your choice to follow your own heart is no more rational than to chose to follow my system of morals but for the difficulty that you might not know my system of morals yet.
Not only that, but to argue for your own morality is special pleading: you only pick that one because its the one you're used to.
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@conradw: I think we are talking around each other a little bit now.

I'm saying that what I count as the source of my morals, my empathy, is amoral in that it is a property I have been borne with and not a result of conscious choice. Now my actual system of morals is a result of mostly conditioning and rational thinking (as well as habit) to form a framework that seeks to ensure that the results of my actions will be in accordance with my empathy.

In this manner I do not choose to follow my heart any more than I choose to like the color blue. This makes it difficult for me to follow your argument of choosing which heart to follow.

I believe that you exist (mostly for convenience sake, but still) :)

I also believe that you are a conscious being (that's taking it one step further, but I consider it convenient as well)
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Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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interesting your heart muscle can think :o
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@ARAZEC: Please see the last line of my post #197 in this thread.
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Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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aha ?
oh i see
thats an awhat heart?


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dragonshardz
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"A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox! A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, this par-a-dox!"

Sorry. Late night + tired = random bursts of song.

I'll be shutting up now.
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I lurk a lot on this forum, and am very busy in real life, so don't be surprised if I take a couple days, or even weeks, to reply to your post or PM.

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conradw
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okay a couple of things
Q1. I'm sure someone asked you this before, but how do you know your conditioning is right?

Q2. I give you a choice, between your own morality, or adopting mine. You might not have chosen your own to begin with, but now you can choose to adopt mine instead - what do you say? I'm guessing you won't pick mine, and I want to know why not.

Q3. If i could hypothetically make God appear for you in such a way that we were entirely certain that it was God (I suppose God would know a way of proving his ID beyond doubt - a celestial driver's licence maybe?). This all powerful, all knowing, entirely moral (whatever that means) being says: Forget Conrad's offer, instead of your own morals, replace them with mine. For I am the very definition of moral - you can be certain that my morality is right and anyone who tells you otherwise is acting through their own human ignorance.
Assuming what the Big Guy says is absolutely true (and that he exists - there are a lot of assumptions in this question) would you accept the offer

(see, this is why I hate playing Devil's advocate - I know the answer I would give, and I'm screaming it in my mind but i can't say it)
Edited by conradw, 10 Nov 2009, 04:25 PM.
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@conradw:
A1: I don't. In fact it would be quite arrogant of me to claim that my morals are "right" (meaning that they can't be improved). In my opinion this may come from imperfect conditioning, unhelpful habits, lack of rational investigation of every single act I do and the fact that it may not even be possible for me to always establish what the right thing to do is even with all my efforts combined. As a said, my empathy is what I count as the main source of my morals, but I don't think counting solely on that is a useful moral strategy.

A2: This is a conscious choice where I can use my rationality. Who's to say I'm not in the process of adapting your morals as we speak? As I learn more about the world, my morals will constantly be improving and if you have important moral lessons to teach me I have no problems incorporating those into my moral framework.

Example: When I was a kid, I used a magnifying glass to burn ants and I had no ethical problems with that as I saw ants as being the same as a twig or a pebble. My mom then asked me "How would you feel if someone burned you with a giant magnifying glass?" Of course there is presumably a difference between an ant and myself with respect to the experience of pain and terror we are capable of, but the question made me realize that I was causing unnecessary harm to a creature that had done nothing wrong other than to exist in my vicinity. With my newfound knowledge of the world I was now able to improve my morals and stop hurting ants. I believe that to truly be a moral person this should be a lifelong process of improvement, and I think therefore the pursuit of knowledge is a moral requirement of an adult moral human being.

A3: Well, you are asking me to assume that his statement is absolutely true. This would encompass many things that I would not count as established as true for the world we're currently living in. For his morals to be absolutely right, there would have to be some absolute, objective morals, a principle I don't believe in. Now, as I'm going with your example fro the sake of argument, let's just suppose that everything in that statement is absolutely true and that there are no other alternatives.

Then, assuming I would be aware of the truthfulness of the statement, I would of course accept this morality. (Yes, I did write "of course")
If this was true, but the truthfulness was not clear to me, I would need him to make it clear for me exactly why this was true. If his argument was unconvincing, I would be left with a God who had given me a sense of rationality which was incompatible with his morals, and I would be highly unimpressed by my creator and would ask to see his superior (you know, the guy who created God).
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conradw
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hypothetical questions assume assumptions. If pigs could fly, would you ride one? I asked this once, flippantly, and my Muslim and Jewish friends both answered in unison: No - the first time I had seen them agree on anything (an exaggeration, of course).

But what if your rationality was not up to the task of understanding God's morals (as you've maybe hinted that its not up to the task of explaining your own)? I'm not sure what evidence it would take, but assume you are as convinced of the truth of what he says as you are that I am writing this - maybe its His winning smile? He's God, would he lie to you?

See I want to know how then you can criticize the morality of others, who "know" they're getting theirs from God when put in the same position you would do the same.


Also, interestingly, I find it interesting that your answer to that third question was different to the one I would have given.
but I liked A2 - i hadn't thought of it like that. But it doesn't answer the question. I didn't offer you the chance to adapt my morals (although there's naught I can do to stop you) but to adopt them - to replace your morals with mine. I'll add that you can blame any action people call immoral on me.
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@conradw: First of all, I'm very interested in what you would answer to those questions :)
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But what if your rationality was not up to the task of understanding God's morals?
To quote my previous answer to this: "I would be left with a God who had given me a sense of rationality which was incompatible with his morals, and I would be highly unimpressed by my creator and would ask to see his superior (you know, the guy who created God)." He would have to explain to me why he had made such a discrepancy between the truth and my ability to understand it. The least thing he could do was to give me a new rationality that was able to understand these morals. That would fix most of my problems I guess :)
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(as you've maybe hinted that its not up to the task of explaining your own)
No, I think a rational approach is just as capable of explaining my morals as it is in explaining everything else. What I'm saying is that I count the SOURCE of my morality to be arational. That does not mean that one cannot use rationality to explain how I got these morals.

Example: A suicide bomber blows up a bus. His action is irrational, and it is linked to his morals which has an arational source (his feeling of wanting to protect his family). Yet both the event and his morals that led him to participate in it can be understood rationally.
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assume you are as convinced of the truth of what he says as you are that I am writing this - maybe its His winning smile?
Whether I am convinced of something being the truth or not, has little to do with whether or not it is the actual truth. I've met people with all kinds of beliefs who are absolutely convinced they know the truth, even though their statements are in conflict with each others "truths" or sometimes even objective reality.

But we supposed in our thought experiment that there WAS a truth, and that this God was telling it to me. Now you are supposing that I believe what he tells me. Well, if I believe what he tells me, then I guess I would also do what he tells me to do, which is accepting his morals. Am I missing some important point here?
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He's God, would he lie to you?
Most people believe in God's who both lie and do much worse things. I see no reason why my God should be any different.
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See I want to know how then you can criticize the morality of others, who "know" they're getting theirs from God when put in the same position you would do the same.
Because I'm not criticizing THEM, I'm criticizing their morality. Just because I can say that "there, but for the grace of knowledge, go I" doesn't mean that my morals would be "right" if I was in their situation, only that it would be understandable that I was having those morals in their situation. If you sit down with me and brainwash me for a week or so, I'm quite convinced I would believe in ANYTHING. I'm human, we're dumb. I don't criticize people for believing things they have had no realistic opportunity to not believe in. But that does not in any way stop me from criticizing those beliefs if I think they are wrong. And I will criticize people who should know better, but who chooses not to (even though I haven't really met many of those).

Now I DO believe that their source of morality is the same as my own, their empathy. But I think that they make the mistake of using their wish to make the world a better place to build their framework of morality on ancient texts and statements from authorities rather than using their rationality and an open mind to find a better path.
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I didn't offer you the chance to adapt my morals (although there's naught I can do to stop you) but to adopt them - to replace your morals with mine.
Once again, if I find that (though I find this unlikely) that there is no overlap between our morals and every single bit of yours are better suited at making the world a better place than mine. I would replace my system with yours. I do get the feeling that I'm missing a finer point you're trying to get to here, so please explain in more detail if that is the case.
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I'll add that you can blame any action people call immoral on me.
To me that statement makes no sense. It would imply that such an attitude would be part of your moral system in our hypothetical case, in which case I could not accept it as better than my own. If we both had that as part of our moral systems it would be a matter of seconds before rational inquiry would force us both to realize the detrimental effect such a rule would have before we both would cast it out.

Also, remember that there is a limit to how hypothetical we can get while still talking about "me" and "you". Who I am is mostly determined by my morals and view of life. If we suppose those to be very different from those I have today, then we are essentially talking about a different person.
Edited by Concolor, 11 Nov 2009, 06:34 AM.
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conradw
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Okay, I've had enough of playing hypotheticals.

There are a couple of points that I've tried to hint at, some quite subtly, others less so.

The first thing I would like to say is that given God's offer, I would have to decline it. Partly it is because of of this notion that as a human being able (ostensibly) to make choices, including moral ones, I have a duty to make those choices: While you might inform those choices, they remain my choices to make, and I'd rather be true to my own heart and burn forever for it than surrender my only truly inalienable right: to think for myself.

And I don't mean that half-heartedly. Even if I knew for a fact that the morals presented before me were eternally and absolutely true, I would rather be the eternal scoundrel whose own name was stamped on the story of his deeds than to be the stainless lamb or blameless infant who crowned himself with blinkers.

That isn't to say I can't learn (and I think this is what you were suggesting in your response), but I would rather be wrong and spend the rest of my life slapping my brow and saying "how wrong was I" than never understand why I was wrong to begin with.

In short, however comforting it might be to know that I am and shall for ever be justified in the eye's of the Lord is irrelevant as long as I disagree with the Lord.

unless might really does make right...
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Concolor
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@conradw: Have no one told you that it is impolite to act more as an atheist than the resident atheist?

Oh, and unless you've had this conversation with your God we're still talking about hypotheticals :)

But do you think our answers are different? And if so, then how do they differ?
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@Conradw -so let me get this straight-
you think accepting Jesus means you give up the right to think for yourself? :blink:

*ARAZEC momentarily pauses to adjust her blinkers*

and so if i want to try atheisim how many morals can i have from Christianity before you call me a Christian?
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